Hold Congress Accountable

Knowledge is power. It makes sure people understand what is happening to their country, and how they can make a difference. FreedomWorks University will give you the tools to understand economics, the workings of government, the history of the American legal system, and the most important debates facing our nation today. Enroll in FreedomWorks University today!

Blog Hit

Did Your Senator Sign a Letter Urging President Obama to Drop his New EPA Cap-and-Trade Rule

Led by Senator David Vitter (R-LA), forty one U.S. Senators wrote to President Obama urging him to withdraw EPA’s new proposed rule to regulate greenhouse gas emissions at existing power plants.

The Senators noted that EPA’s proposed rule would force electricity prices to rise causing harm to the most venerable in society. The letter also raises concerns that the new rule would reduce the reliability of our power grid.

Our primary concern is that the rule as proposed will result in significant electricity rate increases and additional energy costs for consumers. These costs will, as always, fall most heavily on the elderly, the poor, and those on fixed incomes. In addition, these costs will damage families, businesses, and local institutions such as hospitals and schools. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently unveiled a study indicating that a plan of this type would increase America’s electricity bills, decrease a family’s disposable income, and result in job losses.

This proposed rule continues your Administration’s effort to ensure that American families and businesses will pay more for electricity, an important goal emphasized during your initial campaign for President, and suffer reduced reliability as well. Removing coal as a power source from the generation portfolio – which is a direct and intended consequence of your Administration’s rule – unnecessarily reduces reliability and market flexibility while increasing costs. As you are aware, low-income households spend a greater share of their paychecks on electricity and will bear the brunt of rate increases.

This week the lawsuit over the definition of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) under the Clean Water Act (CWA) took its next step at the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. The parties challenging this massive power grab include dozens of states and business groups. In their filings to the court, the challengers spelled out the illegality and unconstitutionality of the rule as well as describing the corrupt and dishonest means the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) used to rush the rulemaking to completion.

On Tuesday, the Obama administration’s attempt to seize control of the nation’s energy infrastructure faced its latest day in court before the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The so-called Clean Power Plan (CPP), which would more accurately be described as the Creating Poverty Plan for its increased energy costs that fall hardest on poor Americans, is the centerpiece of President Obama’s global warming agenda. It seeks to impose massive regulatory costs on the nation’s economy in order to supposedly prevent less than 0.02 degrees of temperature increase by 2100.

When calculating the future impacts of government action, the federal government has very specific rules about how the calculation should be done. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) clearly states that when calculating the cost of future impacts a standard “discount rate” of 7% should be used (a discount rate is used to take account of the fact that $10 today is worth more than $20 10 years from now). But when it comes to global warming regulation, that 7% rate is a problem for bureaucrats. With a 7% discount rate, the present cost of future global warming is virtually zero, even using the federal government’s excessively alarmist models. What’s a radical federal bureaucrat to do when math says that global warming will have virtually no negative economic effect? Well, they take a page from Common Core and change how they do the math.

Have you noticed how the price of electronics and appliances like TVs, refrigerators, computers, or cell phones have been continuous declining as a result of technological progress, but the cost of new cars has been increasing? This is not some special quirk of the car market; it is the result of a deliberate policy by the federal government, prodded by radical environmentalists, to increase the cost of purchasing a new car. One of the chief mechanisms for this war on affordability are Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) mandates, which cost consumers tens of billions of dollars per year. Punishingly high CAFE standards have become a weapon of choice for radical leftists in their efforts to dictate how Americans must live.

Have you ever heard of a school where students are given credit on a math test for an A on a history test? If that sounds preposterous to you, you may be surprised to hear that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses this logic when proposing new regulations. In the process of calculating the benefits of proposed regulation, the EPA also counts benefits from other regulations, essentially double counting benefits that are created elsewhere. With this slight-of-hand, EPA gives the false impression that the benefits of new regulations outweigh the costs. The bureaucrats at EPA then use this as propaganda to force through even more of their destructive regulation.

Regulatory agencies have entered the space of copyright law and have tipped the balance of the intellectual property system. Now, it is somehow unclear that agency regulations designed to protect health, safety, and the environment have absolutely nothing to do with copyright law. As with many threats to the balance of intellectual property, Section 1201 is responsible for tipping the scale.

In October 2015, the EPA announced a new standard for ground-level ozone, tightening its stringent existing standard even more. It set the new standard at 70 parts per million (0.0070% of the atmosphere), a 9% decrease from the previous standard of 75 ppm established in 2008. Along with nearly 1000 counties nationwide that may not meet this new standard, one-third of all US counties, you’ll find at least 26 national parks. Does it seem ridiculous to you that the EPA has created a situation where some of the most rural and pristine areas of the United States could be lumping in the same category with the most densely-populated and industrialized? Well, then you don’t know the EPA.

On Wednesday, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing to examine employee misconduct at the EPA. Misconduct has continued at the EPA despite repeated reform efforts and multiple hearings. Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) opened the hearing by calling the EPA “one of the most toxic places in the federal government to work.” That is a big claim, and one that should alarm conservatives and libertarians who consciously worry about corruption, protectionism, and bureaucracy in the federal government.

On the eve of the March 30 oral argument in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes, a key Supreme Court case that will determine the rights of landowners to challenge the federal bureaucracy's assertion of regulatory jurisdiction over their land, FreedomWorks Foundation Executive Director Curt Levey commented: